day four: we are having such beautiful weather here at the moment that it’s not hard to put in a few hours exploratory making on the mountains. today i got up early and headed for lake muskry in the galtee mountains as i wanted to avoid other walkers incase i wanted to film. i also guessed my analogue camera might be slow work and just didn’t want the hassle of people about. i took my polaroid instax camera with me as well as my DSLR and phone as i wasn’t really sure what i would be doing exactly. the polaroid camera is a clunky camera and limited in terms of settings: i can change the focal range slightly between 0-35mm and 35+ mm and i can also change the ISO from light, medium and dark and that’s about it. the film comes in boxes of 10 and roughly one euro each so this sits really well with where i ended up yesterday thinking i should set analogue parameters of how many shots to take (24 or 36) because i was getting bogged down by all this material. so with such small possibilities i had to shoot today with some degree of consideration and selection.
analogue versus digital: from the very first image that i took today with my polaroid camera i became really excited by the image emerging in front of me as the instax photographic paper developed. i remember feeling this way when i developed my own negatives and film and something i hope to return to over the summer when i stock up on the equipment. delighted with the visible process of image developing i decided to film every shot i took. this might be something i will edit into a video and series of takes. with limited settings on the camera, the images varied from over to under exposure but i think that this is part of the charming quality of this analogue process. i was also interested in the way the landscape was being framed there and then as an image which i could hold up to the landscape and compare image and reality or experience out in the open of this landscape time and space. this was something i also recorded as images using my phone – again a mixture of analogue and digital processes. the framing not way to align the image to the landscape was by holding the photo in my hand so bringing landscape, body and image together. anyway… here are some images from today – a limited edition i suppose.
refection: like screen printing, there is something about physically making an image and seeing the image take shape in front of me. it reminds me of my need to take up my analogue 35mm processing and developing again. i think today helps me connect image with the experience of the landscape too and was aware of the framing of it and the framing of this frame also. the limits of the Polaroid camera also meant that what I saw through the viewfinder was not exactly what I got – like the binocular vision I am exploring in my stereograph series. and as ever, i always feel a good making day is one where i have more thing I want to try from this making and look forward to seeing how the film footage takes shape. ‘footage’ just thought now how that term connects lens and body. to finish, i came across a lovely quote by the film-maker, Abbas Kiarostami, saying something about how we don’t see something until it’s framed. must see if i can track that quote down.
elaine crowe 
Leave a Reply